


Spring's First Thaw

by Marta



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Femininity, First Meetings, Gap Filler, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-15
Updated: 2009-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/pseuds/Marta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Houses of Healing, Faramir gave Éowyn a fine mantle that had once belonged to his mother. Just what did Éowyn think of this gift?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring's First Thaw

  


> They were clad in warm raiment and heavy cloaks, and over all the Lady Éowyn wore a great blue mantle of the colour of deep summer-night, and it was set with silver stars above hem and throat. Faramir had sent for this robe and had wrapped it about her; and he thought that she looked fair and queenly indeed as she stood there at his side. (“The Steward and the King,”  _The Lord of the Rings_ )

  
Éowyn often wondered why the lord steward had given her such a mantle as this. He knew her, knew how she came to be in Gondor at this hour. Had she done aught to encourage him, to give him hope that she might provide that sort of wife? For it was made but from thin cloth; cunningly fashioned to be sure, it would have felt soft against skin much more pampered than hers, but laughably thin all the same. Her mantle – even those words,  _her mantle,_  felt false to her – her mantle was too fine for likes of her. ‘Twas a raiment fit for a queen.

Did the lord steward expect that of her? To look fair and queenly at his side, and to be just as useless at worthwhile tasks as was this mantle? For there was that as well: it unnerved Éowyn that so fine a garment should be so thorougly without purpose. What was she to make of a mantle such as this? A shepherd’s trousers were to keep out the cold and the heat, and to protect his legs from scratches; his wife made her dress looser, so she’d not tear it as she ran after his children. A rider’s cloak, for its part, was woven tight, to cover gleaming mail and turn aside arrows.

‘Twas the last that Éowyn had taken as her model, when sewing her clothes. Aye, she was unlikely to face an orc’s bow in Meduseld, but there were other dangers. Without ever willing it, she had attracted hungry eyes since she first entered womanhood, and she’d gone to lengths to avoid those unwelcome looks, patterning her dresses after those worn by widows: high collars, full skirts, yokes across the chest. Her cloak was an extra shield, pulled tight around her so she looked almost a man. But, nay, this mantle could serve no such purpose. To wear it would be brazen, as dangerous as standing tall and unarmored on a field of battle.

And she had never needed a shield more than at this hour. She realized that now. The Witch-king would have claimed her very soul, but these healers would transform it. They brought her new gowns, formed so the cloth gathered round the breasts, cinched at her waist, and billowed past her hips. And they would have her stay abed, talk with a companion provided to her or work quietly at needlework, and march through the gardens twice a day for the air – and that was all. They would make a lady out of her if they had their way, and what’s more, a high-born lady after the Gondorian fashion.

Yet she was Éowyn Shieldmaiden, Éowyn Wraithsbane. She would not yield.

She would not yield, but neither would she forfeit the fight. These lady-companions who so insisted on reforming her, they must think her people near savage; else why would they remake her in their image? But Éowyn could play their game. She’d played it for years, for stakes much higher than her own pride. So she smiled at the simpering healers, allowed them to dress her as they would, even donned that hateful mantle. She could hardly refuse such a noble gift from a lord of Gondor, nor could she fail to show gratitude by wearing it. And when March melted into April, and the frost first gave way to her leather-soled slippers when she took her morning walk rather than cracking under her feet, and her companions replaced her warmer clothes with summer’s fare, Éowyn said not one word. 

Éowyn could not say when she first noticed the smell of flowers in the air, and felt the sun’s warmth on her back through her thin garments. A part of her wondered whether flowers also bloomed on the mound ringed with spears near Isen, and whether the  _simbelmynë_  would be uprooted when at least she saw her uncle brought home; but another part of her relished the simple pleasure of the moment as it was then, without worrying one bit after tomorrow.

She said not one word on that, either, for she would never let her companions have the victory. Yet when Faramir asked her to walk with him in the gardens, she went – not wholly from duty, or to curry favor with one who might guard her, but for her own joy as well.


End file.
